The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1887-04-24
SMART CRIMINALS.
People Who Always GIVE Them.
selves Away.

When people speak of a man who
commits crime as smart" they mus
use the word with many limitations
They must use it as abiding to the de1
terity displayed in the commission o.
the crime itself; they can seldom use il
with any propriety as describing hi:
actions afterwards. The mind of the
higher class criminal may work we'll in
planning the details of the dob" but
no human mind is far-reaching enough
to foresee what may happen afterwards
! when the mind of one man who has
committed crime is pitted against all
the minds, ten, twenty, hundred, in
tent on discovering the perpetrator of
that crime.
Great wonderment is expressed at the
skill OF detectives in hunting down
criminals, and while the officers deserve
! credit for their patience, perseverance,
| courage and intelligent attention the
real secret of their success is that every
criminal will, in time, give himself
away" He is not smart" enough to
keep from doing it.
Take the case of the robbery of the
express car on the st. Louis and San
| Francisco road, on the 25th of October,
about which everybody is talking. The
| robbery itself, whether the agent Foth-
erlngham, was party or not, was well
planned. 1t took nerve and skill, even
operating with the agents consent. to
get Iato the car and away with the
plumber without being discovered. If
Fotheringham was not guilty then the
operation was the more skillful.
No sooner However, was the Job done
than the weakness of the criminal dis
played itself, as usual. All the good
detective officer wants in this world is
to ind single reliable person who has
seen the criminal, near the time of the
commission OF the crime, and will give
description of him. In this case the
chief criminal himself told where that
person might be found. He wrote, Civ
ing some particulars of the robbery, and
saying that himself and partner deoos-
tied certain articles in certain places
along the river, and had also left a
checked package in the Union Depot in
st. Louis. II is said that liars should
have good memories, and every criminal
becomes of necessity liar and in need
OF the memory aforesaid. In the case
of Jim Cummings. the letter writer,
memory failed. He forgot that in the
package was ballad and on the back
of it was written "2108 Chestnut
Street" The handwriting was the same
as that of the letter. The house was
visited and the person who had seen the
criminal, two criminals, in fact, was
found in the person of Mrs. Berry. The
rest was matter of time and patience.
Ii man had been seen in a certain
place on Tuesday, he will be found to
have been in another place on Wednes-
day, and so on.
The greater the number of persons
concerned in a crime, the easier the
task of discovery, 1t is following a
trail made by four or FIVE feet instead
OF one. I'm numbers is safety" is not |
true in the case of criminal actions.
The perpetrators of certain class OF [
crimes, as robbery, usually have certain
passions, tendencies and weaknesses
which give them away. They gamble, |
rink or keep somewhere a woman. |
Instances are not rare where husbands |
laye remained absent from their wives |
With apparent contentment for years,
,ut the successful knight of the road"
q most instances will join his para
nour in a short time. If she is found, |
lie is found. II he CANDLES or drinks
lie will go to gambling houses or
aloons, and the officer is waiting for
i'm.
The man who commits a crime is
DOL. He matches his brain against too
nsny other brains. He provokes a
over too strong for him. Honesty is
be best policy, because dishonest is
oily and madness.-Atchison (Kan.l